Featured Gift of the Day: Polka Dot Hobo Bag

Today's featured gift is a great brown and white polka dot hobo style bag. I really love this bag and had a hard time keeping it for myself! Both the outside and inside have brown and white cotton blend polka dot fabric. The outside of the handles are made with a rayon blend brown and white flower pattern. The inside of the handles have a soft brown faux suede.

For today's entry once again, I am not going to go into step by step details. Instead, I am going to give a word to the wise on fabric choice. I am really happy with how this purse finally turned out. HOWEVER, it was a pain to sew! Rayon blends and faux suede do not mix well, even if the final result is fabulous! So as a precautionary tale I would tell you to try sewing a few small swatches together to see how they work before starting a big project. And never forget that when sewing lightweight material to heavy material, fusible interfacing is your friend! Ironing interfacing onto your lightweight fabric helps this process immensely. But the most important tip is never be afraid to try new fabric combinations. I did struggle a bit with the rayon and suede, but the results were fantastic.

Happy Crafting!

p.s. as a totally unrelated matter, next week I will be hosting my first giveaway. This time I will be giving away my own stuff. Eventually I plan to give away other great products. More details to follow next week.

Today's Featured Gift Item: Swallow Necklace and Bracelet Set

Today's featured gift is a great necklace and bracelet set. The necklace is quite long, around 20 inches. It hangs quite nicely. It has a swallow charm and crystal square charms. The matching bracelet has square crystal charms. Today, rather than disscuss step by step how I made it, I'm going to give some more generic tips for jewelry making.

1. Have the right tools!
   I know this sound cliche, but having good tools saves you a lot of headache! The 2 tools you cannot live without (at least I can't!) are a wire cutters and a needle-nosed pliers. I actually have two neddle-nosed, one big and one small. I also have a jewelry bending pliers (it has round ends rather than flat ones). It also helps if you make necklaces to have a beading board. These have grooves in them so you can lay out your beads in order before strining them.
   


2. Take your time.
   The more I try to hurry when making something, the more jump rings go flying, things keep breaking and beads go scattering all over the floor. I find by taking my time I do a much better job of making quality pieces.
   


3. Look over your work when you're finished.
   I often have this problem. I think I'm done with a piece and then just lay it aside. Then later when I or someone else is wearing it, something comes off. This is especially easy to do when working with jump rings. Test out your jewelry. Spin the charms/beads around a few times to make sure they're attached well. Also, I use split rings as often as I can. These are like tiny key rings that you have to work harder to get on your jewelry, but that also makes them much harder to come off than plain jump rings.

I hope these tips are helpful. Ask questions in comments if you would like more information.
Happy Crafting!

Today's Featured Gift Item: Seaside Wine Charms

I promised to write a bit each day about my featured gift items. Today's featured item is a great set of four seaside wine charms. They normally are priced at $8.00. For today only, they are $6.00.

The charms were made using gold and silver toned charms. There is an anchor, a ship wheel, conch shell, and a fish in front of coral. The beads are glass and are in the colors that remind me of the sea, turquoise, green and a green/blue as well as some additional clear beads. These are made using basic beading and jewelry techniques. First, I added a bead or two to the wire charm hoop. Then I put a jump ring on each charm and added that to the hoop. I finished by putting matching beads on the other side of the charm. Then I carefully bent the end of each hoop with a pliers to make a small catch to close the hoops on.

These charms would make a great gift for the wine lover. I know I am one!

Happy Crafting!

Blog meets Etsy

I am starting a new promotion in my Etsy store next week. I am adding Christmas related stock, as well as great gift items. Each day starting next week, I will name one item a day a "Featured Gift of the Day" The featured item will be discounted for that day only. As a part of that promotion, I will be making an entry here each day discussing what techniques I used to make the item, trials and tribulations in that technique and other interesting tidbits of information. Check back next week to learn about these great gift items!
Happy Crafting!